Conservation Photography





On the Edge - Indian Vulture (Gyps Indicus)



Some time back I had a request for a few high resolution images of critically endangered vultures found in India by a non profit organization. It may be noted that the population of vultures have drastically declined in India thanks to use of diclofenac by cattle farmers to treat cattle diseases which is highly toxic for vultures which feed on the carcases of dead cattle. This organization was planning to use images to make posters for creating awareness amoung people to protect them.

After giving some of those images to them it occurred to me why not make all my images of subjects in nature which are classified as either Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for use by non-commercial organizations working towards conservation of nature ?

This lead to quick scanning of all my images and tagging them with these key words for faster search of endangered subjects that I have photographed.

If you are a non-profit organization working on nature conservation - wildlife conservation, ecosystem conservation, creating awareness in minds of people about issues related to destruction of ecosystem, declining population, fragmentation of habitiat etc and if you are looking for any of these high quality images I will be glad to donate them for free for this cause of conservation. Please write me providing following information -

- Your name/organization
- Purpose of the image request - It has to be non-commercial and related to conseveration of nature/species/ecosystem or creating awareness.
- Image size requirements
- Any other information related to use of the image which I may need

Here are quick links to images in my archive which are labeled by IUCN as either Near Threatened (NT), Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN) and Critically Endangered (CR).

All my images (NT,VU,EN,CR)

Near Threatened (NT)

Vulnerable (VU)

Endangered (EN)

Critically Endangered (CR)

Endangered (EN) plus Critically Endangered (CR)

While conservation photography may go well beyond donating images for the cause of conservation, this is what I can do at present given the time I have - something is better than nothing.

Some of my contributions as images for such causes so far -

- Philautus neelanethrus at ARKive 

ARKive requested a few images of Philautus neelanethrus which I made - thanks to Dr Gururaja. Some of my images of Philautus neelanethrus are now on at ARKive's site.

- IUCN Species of the day - Gyps Indicus (Indian Vulture)

- Asian Vultures in Crisis - Encyclopedia Britannica's Advocacy for Animals

- Endangered - A Photographic Exhibition - By Cambridge Conservation Forum

- Rare Birds Yearbook 2008 published by Birdlife International (Four images of Indian Vulture)

- Contribution of number of images of Birds and Fauna of Western Ghats region for a book by Ashoka Trust For Research in Ecology and Environment (Yet to be released).

- Number of images/prints for Depart of Forest, Karnataka State, India.

I have made several other image contributions. Unfortunately I don't have information on where they are used ! I would appreciate recepients of my images share the web link (if one exists) or title of the book/article back with me. It is not as important as conservation itself but it gives a more meaningful purpose to my passion of nature photography. My sincere thanks in advance.

Other image contributions to non-commercial works

- For the book on Evolution of Morality by Prof. Douglas Allchin

If you are in need for any of the image which you find in my galleries for conservation related purpose please feel free to contact me. My pleasure to give them for free for this cause.

- Ganesh H. Shankar.